startups Archives - Page 3 of 57

The techcrunch crowd

Posted on December 5, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

You’ve probably read or heard about techcrunch. Which is one of the most popular – technology / startup / silicon valley style blogs. Many tech savvy web addicts trawl it daily if not hourly for the 15+ updates a day.

techcrunch-logo1

Not sure if you’ve ever bothered to read the comments. But they are literally 90% negative. Sure, some or a large part of the ideas or start ups on there will disappear, but it’s not as if every success story only has positive comments either. There is no discerning between any of them.

Rentoid got featured over 12 months ago and got bagged big time. More than 12 months later we are still here, while the pundits are “still in their cubicles”. Calling it from the cheap seats!

The techcrunch crowd – ‘the commentators’, are the type of people us entrepreneurs should stay away from. Their disease of negativity, isn’t worth catching.

The point of entrepreneurship is the journey into the unknown and excitment of creating change, and maybe even proving a few people wrong. Nothing wrong with that.

Any entrepreneur worth his salt is way too busy making their stuff happen, to spend time citicising other peoples efforts. So when someone looks down on your startup, smile and ask them to show you theirs.

Brand Definition… kind of

Posted on December 4, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

An actual definition of brands here on startup blog would be both boring, and downright insulting to my readers… Instead something better; A bit of brand anthropology reverse engineering.

We use brands to tell our story, to make short cuts. To define ourselves.

That said we all have brands we use to define ourselves to others. Brands like the suburb we live in, where we were educated, the companies we have worked for, the job titles we have got, the past times we participate in, the beer we drink and the car we drive….

So then we must consider this; How would our people, our customers and our brand users feel if they had to define our brand as part of them?

Would they be happy to do so? To reference us as part of them?

If yes – we are in an awesome place.

If no – we have some work to do.

Beer is the new wine

Posted on December 3, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

I recently had some beers and a meal at a place called Little Creatures dinning hall in Melbourne Australia.

For the uninitiated, Little Creatures is a craft beer which has it’s origins in Australia and has recently opened a flagship ‘dinning hall’ – seen below.

They’ve simply taken this to a new level. I’m not taking about the fact that they have weird and groovy beer flavours, all naturally brewed. I’m talking about the way they take you on a personal journey with their service.

My favourtie was the beer education programme. They have a ‘pony show’ – I don’t think it’s called that, but it is what I’ll call it for this post.

You get a taste in little groovy pony glasses of all their different beers, then choose one you like. One of their ‘Little Creatures Beer Experts’ comes and sits down on your table with you and they explain all the different types of beers. A real sit down for 10 minutes. A rare treat when the usual sitiation is waiting 10 minutes for crappy service in bars and restuarants. They teach you how to taste each beer and the slight nuances of each. They even provide an idea what type of people generally like the different types.

It’s really nice and fun. I even heard the word “sessionable” to describe a beer – They invent some nice jargon to make you feel part of a tribe. Cool.

No need to advertise this little venture. We’ll do that for them….

And this is what cool startups are doing in retail.

Ideas are free

Posted on December 3, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

This is nothing new – but when was the last time you checked out Springwise?

Springwise is a daily blog featuring new, cool and groovy business ideas, concepts, brands, products and organizations from around the world. Springwise is for everyone, everyday. Even if you don’t need an idea, or you are merrily changing the world already with your startup, it’s a great way to do the following:

Keep up with the world

Be inspired

Find potential collaborators

Cross fertilize thinking and transfer ideas into what you’re doing

In today’s world ideas really are free, but as a startup a more important question is how we take advantage of them.

Big Companies, Big Lies

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

You need more industry experience

You need to have experience managing a team

It’s out of my control

We care, we’re listening

We have a sustainable perspective

Our interests are aligned

People are our most important asset

Open plan is for open communication

We have a long term strategy

We serve our shareholders first

We put our customers first

We put our employees first

We have a lot of first places… ?

We make stuff up so we can justify the money we extract from something we don’t own.

Make your startup the antithesis of this – mean what you say.

Tough Love

Posted on November 27, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

My problem is…. I’m a really nice guy. Really, I’m reasonably nice, just ask anyone who knows me….

Actually it’s more I’m not as smart as I’d like to think I am. You see, often I don’t do people any favours by trying at all costs to be, Mr Nice Guy. Even if it’s at the expense of helping them grow. The interesting thing is that I usually get what I give, and that is, people are generally very nice to me. Even if what I need on occassions, is some home truths to help me grow.

What I really need is tough love.

Turns out my team also need some tough love too.

Tough Love – Startup blog definition:

Having a team let each other know ‘in no uncertain terms’ when members are goofing off, at the expense of agreed upon and shared objectives.

It doesn’t mean we turn into nightmare colleagues or the boss we always hated.

It means that we have a culture where we don’t want to let each other down, but we pull each other up in tough times and provide mutual motivation. We give each other guidance when we need it.

Photo by Chuck Rogers

Words by Steve – rentoid.com

Best advice ‘ever’ for entrepreneurs

Posted on November 27, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

I often get asked the following question: “If you had to give one piece of advice for entrepreneurs what would it be?”

Here’s my answer:

Revenue must exceed expenditure.

The more it exceeds it by, the better.

I like doing cool stuff as much as the next guy, and no I wouldn’t sell tobacco to kids in Africa to make money. But it becomes really hard to do cool stuff if your business doesn’t survive.